Lieutenant Colonel Danny Leslie

Chief of Staff, Defence Land Safety Regulator Defence Safety Authority

Lieutenant Colonel Danny Leslie was born in July 1975 at Enfield, Middlesex. He attended the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst from May 2002 and was commissioned into the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers (REME) in April 2003. Regimental Duty appointments include Second in Command of the Light Aid Detachment at 1st Battalion The Light Infantry in Paderborn, Germany; Platoon Command, Company Second in Command, Regimental Signals Officer, and Adjutant within various REME Battalions; and Officer Commanding Light Aid Detachment with 22 Signal Regiment. Danny has deployed operationally to Iraq and Afghanistan including as Company Commander Mentor with the United Kingdom Leadership Training Team in Kabul. Promoted to Major in 2011 he undertook the Intermediate Command and Staff Course (Land) before an initial Staff Appointment as SO2 Engineering Standards at Headquarters Director Electrical and Mechanical Engineering. During this time, he spent 8 months as the Executive Officer to the Director of the newly formed Capability Directorate Combat Service Support. Company Command followed as Officer Commanding 12 Close Support Company of 1 Close Support Battalion REME in Catterick before being selected for the role of Chief of Staff Regimental Headquarters REME. Selected for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel in 2020, Danny took up the role of Chief of Staff Defence School of Electronic and Mechanical Engineering in May 2021, spending 9 months as Commandant due to an unexpected gapping of the position, and was selected as a Member of the Order of the British Empire on the King’s Birthday Honours List in June 2023 in recognition of his efforts in this period. In May 2023, Danny was assigned to the Defence Land Safety Regulator. Outside of work commitments Danny is the Chair of a national charity, the Prader-Willi Syndrome Association United Kingdom. Danny is married to Rebecca who is a nurse, together they have six children and live in a small village at the northern end of Lincolnshire. With such a brood, spare time to follow other activities is not always easy to come by. However, as he has such an understanding wife, he has managed to follow his main sporting interests representing the Corps at Cricket and Rugby and many of his units at Football. Now that ‘the knees’ are no longer match fit he has taken up road cycling and limited his team sport activities to cheering on (from the sofa) his local sides of Tottenham Hotspur, Saracens, and Middlesex.